From the official Google blog:
Early last month the mayor of Topeka, Kansas stunned the world by announcing that his city was changing its name to Google. We’ve been wondering ever since how best to honor that moving gesture. Today we are pleased to announce that as of 1AM (Central Daylight Time) April 1st, Google has officially changed our name to Topeka.
We didn’t reach this decision lightly; after all, we had a fair amount of brand equity tied up in our old name. But the more we surfed around (the former) Topeka’s municipal website, the more kinship we felt with this fine city at the edge of the Great Plains.
In fact, Topeka Google Mayor Bill Bunten expressed it best: “Don’t be fooled. Even Google recognizes that all roads lead to Kansas, not just yellow brick ones.”
Editors take note: Google Talk and Google Maps are now Topeka Talk and Topeka Maps, respectively. And for trademark protection, please follow this usage guide:
As a Topekan who follows your blog AND uses Google, I loved their April Fool's Day name-change!
Posted by: James Hebert | April 01, 2010 at 08:12 AM
Almost forgot... I believe another improper past tense use would be "I topoked someone" -- if you can even say that on TV.
;-)
Posted by: James Hebert | April 01, 2010 at 08:15 AM